1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile telephony.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous mobile telephony operators offer as a service for their clients, access to weather forecasting servers which can be called in order to obtain information about local weather forecasts.
As a general rule, those servers are audiotel servers and the user can navigate through a menu which is spoken out loud and which enables the user to select the geographical zone of interest.
Systems have recently been proposed which make use of the fact that the position of a mobile telephone in a cellular telecommunications network can be located, even if only approximately. Such systems automatically transmit local weather forecasts to mobile telephones as a function of the locations in which said mobile telephones are to be found.
The mobile terminal proposed by the invention makes it possible to further refine the local forecasts to which a user can have access, while also continuing to make weather forecasts available to the user even in zones which are not or are no longer covered by the cellular telephone network.
Thus, the invention proposes a mobile telecommunications terminal including interface means suitable for enabling information to be communicated to a user. The mobile telephone includes at least one sensor suitable for measuring a meteorological parameter, the interface means including means enabling the user to access information as a function of said measurement.
Such a mobile terminal is advantageously also provided with the various following characteristics taken singly or in any technically feasible combination:
at least one sensor is a pressure sensor;
at least one sensor is a temperature sensor;
it includes means suitable for processing the measurements performed by the pressure sensor to deduce a weather trend therefrom, with the interface means serving to give access thereto;
it includes means suitable for processing the measurements performed by the pressure sensor to deduce altimetric information therefrom, with the interface means serving to give access thereto;
it includes means enabling a reference pressure to be stored on command, relative to which an altitude offset is subsequently calculated by the processor means;
it is suitable for transmitting information to a server enabling the server to locate the terminal, said server itself being suitable for transmitting weather forecast information to said terminal as a function of locating the terminal when interrogated thereby;
it includes means for storing information it receives from said server, the interface means including means enabling the user to access information stored in this way or information that is a function thereof; and
the server transmits local altitude information and the processor means suitable for processing the measurements performed by the pressure sensor to deduce altimetric information are recalibrated as a function of said information.
The invention also provides a system which comprises at least one mobile telecommunications terminal of the above-specified type and a server with which said telephone is capable of dialoguing, said telephone being suitable for transmitting information to said server enabling the server to locate the telephone, the server being suitable for transmitting weather information to the telephone as a function of its location.